Home Office

Islam

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 17 December (HL4279), whether they plan to collect information about overseas funding of the preaching and teaching of Wahhabism in mosques and Muslim education bodies.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of any correlation between Wahhabism and extremism and terrorism in the UK.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon: HM Government’s Counter Extremism Strategy and counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST, set out our approach to tackling the full range of factors that allow extremist and terrorist groups to grow and flourish. These include directly challenging ideologies, including those which have a theological basis. The review into funding of extremism in the UK will include funding that comes from overseas.

Department for Education

Equality Advisory and Support Service

Baroness Prosser: To ask Her Majesty’s Government (1) what is the cost per call of the Equality Advisory Support Service, including the wrap-up time after each call; (2) how this cost compares to benchmarked comparators; and (3) how many calls the service handled each year since 1 October 2012.

Baroness Williams of Trafford: Equality Advisory Support Service (EASS) costs are calculated on a per case basis, covering everything from an initial inquiry through to final action on behalf of the customer, but the EASS estimate of the call element of a case is under £10.The costs per call or per contact of similar services to EASS are treated as commercially confidential information by the providers concerned.The numbers of calls handled by the service each year since 1 October 2012 are provided in the table below.YearContacts via telephoneOct 2012 to Sept 201337,379Oct 2013 to Sept 201439,095Oct 2014 to Sept 201541,032Oct 2015 to Nov 20157,630Total125,136

Cabinet Office

Iraq Committee of Inquiry

Lord Truscott: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the current weekly costs of the Chilcot Inquiry.

Lord Bridges of Headley: The Iraq Inquiry, which is independent of Government, publishes its annual costs after the end of each financial year. The Inquiry’s costs for FY 2014/15 were £1,358,500, providing an average weekly cost in the last financial year of £26,125.

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Universities: Staff

Lord Laird: To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether non-academic employees of a UK university are considered to be public officers for the purposes of misconduct or malfeasance in public office.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: This is a matter of interpretation for the courts to pronounce upon in the context of a relevant case, and it would not be appropriate for the department to provide a general legal opinion.

Trade Union Bill

Lord Lea of Crondall: To ask Her Majesty’s Government for what reasons they have decided not to follow the guidance set out in Chapter 14 of the Cabinet Office Guide to Making Legislation in respect of the Trade Union Bill, and in particular the requirement in paragraph 14.10 to publish the final impact assessment "at the final proposal stage".

Baroness Neville-Rolfe: In line with the Cabinet Office guidance, we will publish a final impact assessment before enactment. The Government has already published consultation Impacts Assessments alongside the public consultations that support the overall package of reforms, as well as an equality impact assessment and will publish a further Impact Assessment on the Bill before Lords Committee.